Ian Bell, you are rubbish.

There have been arguments about the rights and wrongs of the selection decisions for England’s side in the 1st Test against South Africa. Should they have picked an extra bowler, and who would that have been? For some reason Luke Wright has entered the frame as a potential Test player. While I admire his contributions in ODIs, where he’s chipped in with useful spells with ball and bat, I’m not sure he’s yet got the all round game to offer much at Test level. It also left me confused as to why we’d given Tim Bresnan all those Tests over the summer. He offers far more with the ball and nearly as much with the bat as Wright would.

While Andrew Strauss’ judgement can be called into question for his misreading of the pitch on Wednesday morning, the one clear thing that has emerged is that Ian Bell cannot play for England again this tour. Bell’s leave in the 1st innings was awful, woeful. Paul Harris is the Saffer version of Ashley Giles, a non-spinning spin bowler. This can be highly effective, as Giles proved in his England career. But to get out while leaving what is Harris’ stock ball, the arm ball, is a disgrace. And for that ball to then take out middle stump, well that just compounds it. I just hope that shot (or lack of) doesn’t skewer Bell’s career in the same way as happened to Chris Read after his duck to that Chris Cairns slower ball.

The 2nd innings showed yet again that while he is a talented batsmen, Bell lacks the mental fortitude to succeed at the highest level. England had just lost a couple of highly settled batsmen in Trott and Pietersen (KP, what were you thinking of with that run out?) and needed someone to come and keep Paul Collingwood company at the crease to play out the rest of the day. Bell went after just 10 balls. Contrast his innings with that of Paul Collingwood, who yet again played an epic one. He faced just shy of a century of deliveries, scoring 26 not out, and grinding out a performance exactly matching what the game situation required. Ian Bell could never play that innings.

My problem and frustration is that I want Bell to succeed. He’s a technically gifted batsman who I’ve seen score beautiful, elegant runs, and get some big runs too. I just fear he will be another Hick or Ramprakash, and that in 12 years, when he’s scored 1000 runs a season for the fourth season in the row we’ll be having the same conversations we’ve had about those two. Bell can have one more go at international cricket, possibly in 2 years time. But for the near future, his international career should be put on hold.